Maintaining Audiences
Disney was highly aware of how to build and maintain audiences nationally and globally, from the shaping of the original product to appeal more to a family audience, the marketing and distribution by its own company, merchandising etc. Disney was an early master of synergy, persuading companies to tie in with their film’s release, running a character merchandising department. ‘In addition to pioneering synergy, branding and merchandising beginning in the 1930s, Walt Disney also developed the idea of synergy between media consumption and theme park visits in the 1950s. The producer of animated films used the popularity of his famous cartoon characters for a weekly show on ABC that served as an advertisement for his theme park. In turn, visiting Disneyland helped secure customers’ brand loyalty to the Disney trademark for the future. This strategy of cross-promotion... has become a basis for the Walt Disney Company’s rapid growth.’
Thus Disney constantly renewed interest in their products, not only through re-releasing on DVD but through tie ins with other companies – MacDonalds had Jungle Book 2 Happy Meals in the 1990s, for example, which in turn promoted the first film. ‘Disney offers an immense potential for both cross-promotional campaigns in cooperation with other companies and in-house cross-promotion marketing strategies...Cross promotion – marketing activities carried out in cooperation by two different companies using the popularity of their brand names to promote one another’s – is today a major profit source for Disney’.
Disney also licensed the characters for use by other companies, such as Virgin who developed a Jungle Book video game for Sega, Gameboy and PC in the early 1990s: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1967-ADVERT-Walt-Disney-Jungle-Book-Movie-Character-Merchandising-Division-/311401752525
TASK: Create a list of all the different products that are available that carry The Jungle Book name. Begin with finding an image of a Jungle Book happy meal. This type of marketing is called cross-promotion.